Minaret and My Name is Salma: Female Muslim Identity in Postcolonial Trauma Novels

Postcolonial trauma novels are interdisciplinary novels where postcolonial, trauma, memory and cultural studies intersect. Thus, postcolonial trauma fiction are narratives that discuss the impact of colonisation through self-representation and usage of the recurrent themes and styles of trauma theory. Trauma narratives serve many ends: first, they show the frequency of trauma as a multi-contextual social issue that results from different experiences. Second, they raise questions about how the individuals deal with loss and fragmentation. Third, they highlight how the surrounding environment is responsible for helping in the healing process of the traumatised and how trauma reproduces itself if not attended. Moreover, they invoke readers not only to bear testimony but also to act. Seen in this light, this paper examines Leila Aboulela’s Minaret (2005) and Fadia Faqir’s My Name is Salma (2007) as trauma narratives where common traumatic experiences in the Arab world, such as political instability and honour killings lead to fragmentation, exile and alienation. The traumas of the female protagonists are depicted as common predicaments of Arab women immigrants in the West that affect their sense of subjectivity due to colonial history. Minaret and My Name is Salma are read as semi- autobiographical novels that echo some of the aspects in the lives of their writers. The novels represent the identity formation/ reformation in their homelands and host lands. The role of memory and the community in the protagonists’ traumatic experiences is a major point of focus in both novels.